Tuesday 3 August 2010 05.48 EDT
First published on Tuesday 3 August 2010 05.48 EDT

Mark Ramprakash leaned forward and lowered his voice. "I've heard a lot in cricket recently about how we have got to have the right characters in the team, how we have got to gel in the dressing room and have 11 individuals going in the right direction. That is great." He paused and did a quick sweep of the room with his eyes, "But individuals have got to go out and perform. You don't have to love each other and go out for beers and be together 24/7. It doesn't have to be that way. You just need to come together to perform."

Judging by his Test record a cynic would say Ramprakash seems an unlikely sort to be providing psychological insights into what makes a successful team. But at domestic level he has won three Championships and every single limited-overs competition going. He was a key part of two great county teams – Middlesex in the early 90s, and Surrey in the early 2000s. Neither were sides, it seems, where players were expected to get on with each other off the field, only to work together on it.

Pakistan's problems run a little deeper. Their players do not just feel antipathy towards each other, but genuine abhorrence. The internecine squabbles between the three recent captains Mohammad Yousuf, Younis Khan and Shoaib Malik and the cliques they caused to form within the team were the chief reason for Pakistan's awful performances in Australia last winter, when they lost every single international match they played. The upshot was that all three were banned by the PCB, Yousuf and Younis indefinitely and Malik for a year. Two of them, of course, are now back in the team. The missing man is Younis, who is undoubtedly the player who would make the single biggest difference to the team's fragile batting, despite his poor form for Surrey in the Twenty20 this summer. At least Younis has been playing top-level cricket, Yousuf has only played two club Twenty20 matches since last March.

The PCB'S logic in handing out those bans – such little of it as there was, their innumerable critics would say – was supposed to remain confidential. That plan was scuppered in May, when a video of the player inquiry hearings was leaked to the Geo Super TV station. The Board blamed the players for the leak. Suddenly the extent of the discord inside the dressing room was laid bare for all to see. Malik, it became clear, hated Yousuf. Yousuf hated Malik back in return. Everybody disliked Younis.

So severe was the feuding that Malik was accused of refusing to play for Younis in a warn-up match on tour in New Zealand and for Yousuf in the second Test in Australia. There were strong suggestions that Malik's ally Rana Naved-ul-Hasan (also banned) wilfully underperformed on the pitch just to make Younis' captaincy look bad. Specifically suspicions were aroused by his innings of one run from nine balls while batting at No8 in a T20 match against Australia on 5 February. Pakistan, chasing 128, needed 29 runs from 35 balls and yet ended up two runs shy with a wicket to spare. Rana Naved later insisted that the videos which were leaked had been selectively edited to distort his evidence. Still, Malik was alleged to have led a group of eight players who took an oath of allegiance not to play under Younis' captaincy.

Malik was "like a termite" said one PCB member. "He played politics all the time," says Yousuf in the video, "Former chairman Dr Nasim Ashraf made a big blunder and hurt Pakistan cricket when he appointed Malik captain in 2007 when his place in the side was also not confirmed. This led to other players also believing they could become captain, it set a wrong precedent in Pakistan cricket."

"His captaincy in Australia was pathetic," shot back Malik at Yousuf, "he has no confidence to take decisions." Shahid Afridi was also getting stuck in, accusing Malik of "double-standards" and insisting that he "would not have him in the team" if he was captain.

The root of the spat stretches back to the 2007 World Cup, and the retirement of Inzamam-ul-Haq. Malik, Younis and Yousuf were the three candidates to succeed to the captaincy. Younis turned it down, Yousuf was snubbed and Malik was appointed. He lobbied to have Yousuf dropped from the World Twenty20 team. Yousuf seems never to have forgiven him. Now, of course, both men are back in the same dressing room. In 2009 Malik resigned and Younis took over. When the team won the 2009 World Twenty 2009 under his leadership it looked as though the right man may have been in charge. But Younis does have a remarkable ability to alienate his teammates and the Board members, and he too resigned after being accused of throwing matches by a Pakistani politician. Yousuf took over and things took a turn for the worse.

In the light of all this, the insistence of head coach Waqar Younis and new captain Salman Butt that the time has come to make a clean break from the past and commit to the younger squad who played in the first Test against England seems a sensible policy. The flip side of it is that in doing so they will most likely lose a lot of games along the way. Still, that was a price that the two were willing to pay for long-term progress. And at least the win against Australia at Headingley provided evidence of the team's potential. It is not apparent who is responsible for the flip-flop decision to recall Yousuf, given that both captain and coach were clear that they did not want him in the team.

Teammates do not need to like each other, as Ramprakash pointed out. But active hatred is another thing altogether. Salman Butt will need to be made of strong stuff to lead this mob. The reintroduction of Yousuf may improve his team's batting, but it will do nothing for their morale.